Fallout

When it rains, it pours - literally. Seattle might be used to a lot of rain, but thunderstorms are a different thing all together. My flight was delayed, then delayed again. We finally taxied out to the runway at nine that night. A five hour flight and with the three hour time difference, it was five in the morning when the plane landed at Metropolitan Wayne Airport.

The cab pulled into my drive at six and I went straight to bed. Julie woke long enough to give me a kiss, then we both crashed. When I called Julie last night she was watching trashy TV, she always had trouble sleeping when I'm out of town, so I expect she was up most of the night.

When I woke it was two in the afternoon; Julie wasn't home, but there was a note. "Sam - at the spa, had a one o'clock for a massage, hair color & cut and the rest. Should be home before five. Hope you got some rest. Love you, XXXXXX Julie"

I knew better than to try and call, Julie turns off her phone while she has her spa time. And no, I never worried that Julie was using this time to step out on me, even this afternoon; if you saw what she looked like every time she came home from the spa, you'd realize three hours and three hundred bucks was a bargain.

Julie swept into the house at five minutes to five. "You look great, babe. How 'bout we go out for dinner tonight?"

Julie gave me a nice hug and a better kiss. "What are you talking about, Sam? The Taylors will be here in a half-hour."

"Wait, you mean they're still coming over. I assumed you would have cancelled since we haven't spent more than a half hour together and awake since Tuesday morning."

"It would be rude to cancel at the last minute. Sorry, I thought we talked about this Thursday. How Susan is looking forward to making it up to you."

I was getting steamed. "Is that why you spent the afternoon at the spa? To get put together for Kyle?"

"Of course not, silly. We have the Kaufmann's wedding tomorrow afternoon. You know how all those women are; they'd tear me to pieces if I didn't show up looking my best. Now hurry up and shave. The Taylors will be here soon."

By the time I finished shaving, the doorbell was ringing. By the time I got to the front door, Kyle and Susan were already in the house and Kyle had his arms wrapped around Julie's waist. He picked her up off the floor while staring at her. "Damn, you look great tonight." Then he looked over at me, he put Julie down and held out his hand. "Sam, I guarantee you and Susan are going to have a ball tonight." He laughed at his own stupid joke without noticing I refused his hand shake.

Julie cut in. "I have a few beers chilling in the guest room. We all know why we're here tonight, no need to waste any time." She took Kyle's hand and headed into the bedroom. I looked at Susan, she looked down.

"Sam, let's go to bed." Susan headed up the stairs to the master bedroom.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of wine, two glasses and two pears. By the time I walked into the master bedroom, Susan was undressed and under the covers. I poured the wine and cut a few slices of pear with my pen knife.

"What made you change your mind, Susan? Why the sudden desire to have sex with me?"

"I won't lie to you, Sam. I didn't change my mind. Kyle told me it was part of the bargain. If I didn't have sex with you, you'd stop allowing us to come over. Don't get me wrong, Sam; I think you're a very attractive man and you're a true gentleman, but having sex with a man I'm not in love with is not who I am. Please come to bed and let's just do it."

"No, I guess we're both who we are. We're not going to fuck just because our spouses want us to. Let's enjoy some wine and watch TV."

And that's what we did until Susan fell asleep around midnight.

An hour later I got up and went downstairs into the kitchen for a stiff drink. I was pouring myself a glass of bourbon when I looked out the back window. In the moonlight I could make out two people in the pool. They were hugging in the shallow end, the motion suggested they were screwing. I wasn't going to watch them; but it's like a friend of mine once told me. He was skiing when he stopped, looked up and saw a man flailing down the slope, obviously out of control. My friend said he didn't want to watch, the man was heading straight for a grove of trees. The man hit more than one tree and still my friend couldn't turn his head or close his eyes. My friend began to tear up as he told the story, this was ten years after the event, "I watched a man die that day and I couldn't look away."

Neither could I, Kyle and Julie chose that moment to get out of the pool. Julie looked beautiful as she walked up the pool steps, Kyle right behind her with that pole sticking straight out. Kyle sat on one of the sun lounges and Julie knelt in front of him. He faced me, but I knew he couldn't see me inside the house. I watched as he grabbed Julie's head and pushed her mouth down on his cock; there was a look of malevolence on his face, he enjoyed trying to hurt her. I expected Julie to sit up and curse the fucker, but she only reacted to his pressure by placing her hands behind his ass. He lifted her head up; Julie rose off her knees, then lowered herself on his cock. Julie didn't have Susan's aversion to taking it all the way. I watched Kyle bite one of her nipples, it had to hurt, but Julie's head was thrown back in ecstasy. I puked in the sink.

Luckily, I hadn't eaten anything solid but half a pear all day, I rinsed my vomit down the drain and headed back to the bedroom after poring myself a second glass of bourbon.

It hit me when I looked down at Susan sleeping on the other side of the bed, I raised the covers and lifted the arm of the t-shirt she was wearing. I had seen it earlier, but it didn't register. Julie's upper left arm had a large black and blue bruise. I didn't wake her, but put a sticky note on the bedroom door where she would see it before leaving the room. "Susan - important - wake me."

It was early Sunday when Susan shook me awake. "Sam, what is it? Why do you want me to wake you up so early?"

I looked in Susan's eyes. "How did you get that bruise on your arm?"

Susan looked scared. "I ran into a door. I'm so clumsy. Why"

"Don't give me that 'run into the door' horseshit. How? Tell me the truth!" I kept my voice low.

She still looked scared, but answered me this time. "Kyle did it. He was upset when I told him that you and I didn't have sex last weekend. He said if I didn't do it this time he would break my ribs again."

"He broke your ribs? When?"

"Last year when we had a fight. He doesn't hit me a lot, but sometimes when he gets really angry, he gets carried away a little."

"Susan, breaking ribs is not 'getting carried away a little'. Have you thought about going to the police?"

I never knew, or at least I never knew for certain, a battered spouse; but I'd watched enough Lifetime movies with Julie to understand everything Susan said for the next ten minutes. All the excuses for her husband's abuse, all the reasons she couldn't leave him, all the reasons she refused to acknowledge the truth when the police questioned her last year. Susan talked and I listened without trying to argue with her.

"Susan; don't worry. I'm going to tell Julie and Kyle that we had sex last night. You need to say the same. Tell Kyle we had sex twice, remember - twice. Tell him I was a gentleman and it was nice. Not great or anything - just nice. Tell him we didn't do anything but missionary sex, no oral or anything but missionary. We need to keep our stories straight, but we can't let Kyle get jealous. If Julie and Kyle want to get back together next weekend, agree. Don't act like you're looking forward to it, only tell him OK. Do you understand?"

I didn't tell Susan what I really had planned for the upcoming week. I didn't trust her enough not to spill the beans if Kyle got rough with her. Maybe he wouldn't hit her again if he doesn't think she's hiding anything.

When Julie and Kyle entered the kitchen later that morning, I played the game. "Kyle, you were right; Susan and I had a fantastic night. She's the firecracker you promised." The look on Julie's and Kyle's faces almost made me sick again.

Kyle and Susan left soon after. Julie and I went to the Kaufmann's wedding and reception acting like the loving couple everyone expected. Julie hinted while we danced that I could expect some kind of action when we got home, but by the time we walked in the door, I told her I was too tired. I think she was relieved, she was probably still sore from the night before.

Monday would be a long day. I held a short meeting at work, assigning tasks to each of my department managers to prepare for the new work. By ten-thirty I was out the door.

The meeting with Ronald Rice was an eye opener. This is what I learned:

•Kyle Taylor was a sales rep for a company doing business with Julie's company. They must have known each other well before Julie brought up the topic of swapping with another couple. The whole advertisement in the Real Detroit Weekly was a subterfuge to hide the obvious intended outcome.

•Kyle Taylor had a history of run-ins with the law. One reason why he would never advance beyond sales rep was his criminal record. One misdemeanor conviction for battery and a felony conviction for assault when he beat some guy up in a bar fight. Kyle was lucky to have a job, although both convictions were over six years ago.

•He was investigated for domestic abuse, but his wife (Susan) didn't press charges and he was released.

By now I wasn't too stunned to learn that Julie and Kyle spent a long lunch last Thursday at the Ramada Inn.

The more I heard, the more I wondered how Julie, who I thought was a fairly intelligent woman, became involved with such a snake. Did she have any idea of who she was screwing?

My meeting with the attorneys that afternoon set the wheels in motion. The two attorneys listened to the chain of events leading up to today. They were pleased I hadn't had sex with Susan, but I saw something in the way they looked at each other that made me anxious.

"What?"

"It would be very helpful if there was some way you could get Julie to confirm that swapping was her idea, that you never said, "yes" to it. It would also help if we can get a statement from Susan affirming that sex never took place."

The attorneys and I discussed the pre-nuptial and the expected terms of the divorce. According to the pre-nup, my house and business were safe; I probably would end up splitting half the other assets accumulated since the wedding. That burned me, of course, but I was determined to get out of this marriage as quickly as possible. The new contract for the plant would take up long hours over the next few months and I couldn't afford to have this contract get fucked up.

It was easy to get Julie to open up Monday night; admitting how the idea of swapping was her idea. Since she now assumed I had fucked Susan, Julie went on and on during a nice meal about how she knew I would enjoy it, she even admitted she did it over my objections, blissfully chattering while I secretly recorded the conversation. What she didn't admit to was knowing Kyle before running the ad. We finished dinner and even fucked that evening; making love was a thing of the past. I had no trouble getting it up more than once, I took pleasure in the fact I'd soon be rid of the cheating slut and used her mouth and cunt to deposit my anger.

I decided I needed to accomplish one more thing - get Susan out from under Kyle's thumb. For this I would need Ronald Rice again. Getting Susan separated from Kyle turned out to be simpler than anticipated. With Rice's help, we played on two of Kyle's biggest vices: his overwhelming ego and his violent inclinations.

I called Kyle and asked him to meet me at a tavern under the pretext that I needed to understand his secret sauce for making my wife enjoy their sex. I acted the stupid cuckold on the phone, told him that Julie just wasn't getting off on the sex with me since we started swapping. What was his secret? Kyle couldn't help but eat up my words of sorrow due to his superior lovemaking; the fool agreed to sit down with me and share his knowledge regarding women.

Wednesday we met and sat at a table in the tavern; I listened to Kyle drone on about his technique. Of course, he couldn't help but brag about the fact that few men had his equipment. He rubbed it in as he pretended to commiserate about how men like me couldn't compete when it came to pleasing a woman. All the while I continued to buy boilermakers; Kyle must have downed four beers and four shots of Wild Turkey during the hour and a half we sat there. I thanked Kyle and told him I had to leave, but asked the bartender to deliver one last beer to Kyle before I left, "just to thank you for your help". Kyle was a bit smashed as I walked out the door.

I wasn't there when part two of Kyle's ambush took place, but Rice told me the next day that things couldn't have gone better. One of Ron Rice's associates, a John Henson, leaned over the back of the booth and quietly said Kyle was full of shit, that he knew for a fact from Kyle's wife that Kyle was a dud in the sack, even on the few occasions when he could get it up. Obviously, this was all crap, but Kyle was too drunk to figure that out and when Henson walked past Kyle with his back turned, Kyle took a swing at him. Henson was ready for it and merely got clipped in the ear, he did a great impression of an NBA star flopping on the ground while cutting his skull with a hidden razorblade.

Blood was flowing, Henson was screaming, the bartender and two patrons called 911 while Kyle was subdued by two other patrons. It was three thousand dollars well spent, including the fifteen hundred Henson got for his part in the theatrics. The cops showed up; Kyle was arrested and booked for assault and battery. He would end up serving two years, his public defender asked for a suspended sentence, but given Kyle's past convictions, the judge sent him away. I would have felt bad about setting him up, but any man that beats his wife deserves to be sent to jail; two years seemed like a light sentence given what he did to Susan, but at least he was gone and Susan was safe for now.

One of my attorneys' associates was sent and helped Susan get in touch with a women's help group for battered spouses. I also asked a friend of mine who had a small business to offer Susan a job. It was just an entry level position, but it helped Susan make the transition from abused wife to independent (divorced) woman.

As for Julie; things moved quickly on Friday. After meeting with my personal banker, moving some money around and closing some joint credit card accounts, Julie was served Friday evening when she returned home from work. I decided not to have Julie served at work; although it would have been satisfying to embarrass her that way, my attorney advised me to play it cool until a settlement was reached. I took her advice and it turned out to be a smart call in the long run, financially speaking.

The locks had been changed, Julie was met at the door by a representative of my attorney and handed the packet with the divorce papers. Before Julie had a chance to open the packet I called her into the dining room.

"What's this, Sam?" she asked while holding the packet.

"It's the divorce papers, Julie. Sit down a second."

Julie just stared at me as she sat down.

"Julie, I know you set me up with this entire farce about swinging so you could fuck that asshole Kyle without me knowing I'd been set up. I know you two knew each other before this all started. I know about you meeting him last week while I was out of town. I'm not going to stay married to a liar and a cheat."

Julie fought back, "But you fucked Susan; don't play all mister high and mighty with me!"

"I never touched Susan. We only told Kyle that lie so she wouldn't get beat up again. You didn't know it, at least I hope you didn't, Kyle beat Susan after the first weekend when she and I didn't consummate your arrangement. We had to pretend the second weekend for her sake. It doesn't matter now; your little fuck buddy is sitting in jail. Chances are he'll be there for a while. I hope like hell you don't do something stupid like bail him out. If you do, I'll make certain to change the agreement for finances in the divorce."

Julie spent the next half hour trying to convince me that we were in love, we could get past this and start our family. She even tried the "it was only sex" crap. I kept my cool, it was hard not to shout at her for wrecking our marriage and stumping on my love for her; all for a chance to fuck Kyle's big cock.

It was getting late and I was paying the lawyer sitting in the living room by the hour. I ended the conversation and told Julie to collect some personal items so she could get a place to stay while the courts worked out the details of our divorce. Julie had her own credit card and access to the checking account that still had a few thousand dollars in it, so she wouldn't be sleeping on the streets. Too bad, but the law doesn't work that way.

My phone rang five or six times that night after she left until I decided to turn off the phone and try to get some sleep. When I turned the phone on the next morning, there were just as many messages on my voice mail account and even more texts from Julie. This would not be fun, nor easy.

I had a good divorce attorney watching out for my financial interests; but nothing filled the giant hole in my heart. There were times I almost stopped the divorce, thinking I should give Julie another chance - but every time I remembered her deceitful actions and I knew I could never trust her again.

During the divorce proceedings Julie's attorney tried to claim I was just as much at fault because I had sex with Susan. Susan's deposition claimed otherwise, but her attorney continued to make a big deal of it until both Susan and I offered to take lie detector tests. That shut him up. My recording of Julie's admission of duping me into the arrangement was never entered into the record, but the judge still heard a transcript of the recording before he ruled it was inadmissible. How do you unhear and forget something? I'm certain it had some bearing on the final judgement; which was fair, but much less than what Julie's attorney was seeking.

During all this bullshit surrounding the divorce proceedings, I did what too many duped husbands do; I got drunk a lot. My health suffered and my relationships with friends and family suffered. Fortunately, during the work day, while I was busy with important tasks, I could keep my shit together; but after the day ended, it was back to the bottle.

See, the thing was, Julie is the kind of wife that would sit on the couch next to you watching the Lions; even when the Lions were having a piss-poor season. She'd see my beer was almost empty and get up and grab me another longneck, and not that light beer crap, a real beer! How many wives will go to a dozen Tigers games every season? Wearing an Al Kaline jersey? Those are just a few more reasons why I'd miss her. But the lying? I couldn't get past it and so I was drinking to forget.

Until the day of the intervention. It was approximately a month after the divorce was finalized. My father and my best friend showed up at my house one fine Saturday morning. They kicked the bimbo I picked up the night before out; turns out we hadn't even screwed because I was too bombed to get it up. Despite the anvil banging inside my skull, they got me showered and dressed and took me out for breakfast.

That was the beginning of my recovery. My friends took turns keeping me sober and on the road back to health. Within three months I was scheduled for a 10k fun run for charity.